(credit to Digital Art Science for image idea)

You wouldn’t actually ring a friend and say “I like banana bread”, or “I’m washing the dog” would you? I can tell you quite honestly that if it was me you called with this news, no matter how dear a friend you are, you’d get “You boring twat” and a hang-up.

But we do this to each other every day, in some cases several times a day, thanks to Facebook. From letters we’ve moved to phone calls, then to SMSs; now we have Facebook’s endless updates and pointless conversations.

Pattering along behind, but catching up quickly, is Facebook’s hyperactive little spawn, Twitter.

I’m ashamed to admit that I have, lately, become somewhat of a Facebook addict. It all started so innocently, though, I promise. I started off playing Scrabble online when lovelywife was buried nose deep in a book, and now I’ve always got at least four games on the go at any one time. Then we set up a Tribune Facebook page, and a group, and in order to promote it and keep people updated and spread the love, I had to suddenly take on sixty or more Facebook friends.

And that’s where it started to get nutty. Now Facebook scrabble is my home page, so I have to check in every half hour or so to see if it’s my turn. I’ve fallen so deep into the Facebook black hole that I’ve put up such “status updates” as “Justin Shaw…is very angry at the dogs for chewing up their bed.”, and this little beauty “Justin Shaw… is oh so very tired.”

Time was, we could keep up one end of a conversation, while still keeping our most uninteresting thoughts entirely to ourselves. Now, it seems, there is no filter – Facebook lets us vomit out whatever happens to be on our minds without critical review, without actually thinking to ourselves “does anyone actually care that my favourite cupcake is chocolate?”.

Instant, disposable communication has meant a lowering of standards in the way we conduct all our relationships, both personal and professional. It’s no effort at all now to fire off a quick response or opinion on anything, without self-censorship or any kind of quality control. Add to this the fact that everyone under 35 went through school being validated and empowered and never told they’d done anything wrong, and we end up in the current parlous state of the English language.

More irksome, however, than lowered standards of grammar is the lowered standards of interpersonal relationships. My Facebook friends and I indulge in pointless and unedifying chats about someone’s hangover, or their cat, or (in my case, when I recently decided to go for broke in making my point about the stupidity of it all) a very satisfying bowel movement. IMHO this is not really something we should LOL, or LMAO about, and it’s definitely not worth ROFLing.

People tell me that there are good things about Facebook, such as staying in touch with friends when they’re overseas (yeah, what happened to postcards or letters or phone calls or even emails?), or even people you just don’t see all that often (repeat as above). You can post photos for everyone to see, and that’s nice, except when you remember that Facebook owns them for all time, you can be tagged in photos by people you don’t know, and Facebook data can, and has, been used in court as character evidence.

Yet, I concede, there are good things about Facebook. We update our friends and fans on Tribune news and events, as does our favourite bar, and a couple of bands we’re into. A mate who we don’t see all that often anymore recently got married at very short notice, and all the photos are there, and we were able to send him our love, and I’m playing scrabble with him as we speak. Also, I have to admit, that for those “take my brain off the hook and give me something idiotic to giggle at before my head explodes all over the office” moments at work, Facebook is one of my go-to googles, so I don’t really have the right to diss it too much.

On a larger scale the Black Saturday bushfires were a good example of how Facebook can bring out the best in people, where it became a focus point for organising donations of cash and necessities for the victims, and to show our support and admiration for all the volunteer fire fighters and other emergency workers.

Instead of succumbing to the stupidity and the waste of time that is so much of what Facebook is, perhaps we could start using it for something a little more? It shouldn’t take a tragedy like the bushfires to galvanise millions of people into doing something good, or taking some kind of action for their community, maybe we could get this going on a little more?

Years ago, one small man stood in front of a tank in Tiananmen square, and while his image is one for the ages, it ultimately achieved nothing, because he was just one man. There are millions of us on Facebook, and all the governments and all the multinationals can’t stop us communicating.

The potential for Facebook is enormous, and we’re frittering it away. Just imagine what could happen if ONE MILLION Australians joined a group like, I dunno, “Stop Rudd’s Carbon Scam” (I just did), then organised themselves to buy up all the carbon credits they could and take them off the market. Something would be achieved by a whole lot of people, that one person just couldn’t do.

I’ve committed myself to joining, and promoting, at least one worthwhile Facebook group per month, and promoting them, and trying to get something to happen through them. You may not agree with my beliefs as evidenced by the groups I join, that’s fine, I’m not asking you to, I’m just suggesting that you start to use this enormous, free resource for something.

Because until we do, I’m just going to keep posting my big Scrabble scores and telling you about how many times I’ve been to the toilet each day.

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